TVSquad

Aziz Ansari seems to be the hottest name around Hollywood casting circles. According to Variety, the stand-up comedian, who's also one-third of the MTV's acclaimed sketch team Human Giant, has been cast in the upcoming Office spin-off. He's also signed a one-year talent hold deal with Universal Media Studios.

What's interesting about this news is that Ansari was also tapped to play one of the new interns on the eighth season of Scrubs, which is produced by and will now air on ABC. What I'm guessing is that, since Scrubs will finish shooting in August, this deal will start after his deal with the veteran medical comedy ends. If there happens to be a ninth season of the show, as Bill Lawrence told me might happen, I'd imagine he'd come back after his Universal deal ends or they'll just replace him with someone else.

Considering that MTV seems to cater to nothing but teenagers, how did two thirtysomethings and a very mature 25 year-old end up making one of the network's most popular shows?

By being funny. Damn funny, in fact.

Rob Huebel, Aziz Ansari, and Paul Scheer (l-r), otherwise known as Human Giant, are entering their second season on the cable network, starting tomorrow night at 11 PM ET. I spoke to the guys by telephone last week as they were doing a round of promotion for their second season, as well as the DVD of the first season, which was released on March 4.

Tidbits from the interview, and audio clips, are after the jump.

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to anyone that Human Giant, the new sketch comedy series for MTV, has been granted a second season.

In order to drum up more interest in the show, MTV turned the network over to the Human Giant men: Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer for 24 hours and told them they had to garner one million hits on their Web site if they wanted a second season. Of course, taking into consideration lines from the press release like, "fans can also show up in Times Square to deliver a pizza counting for 80 hits, or carving Paul Scheer's face into Mount Rushmore for the entire million hits" it's obvious the series was going to be renewed all along. Still, it's nice to hear an official announcement.

So I told you that on May 18 Human Giant would be taking the reins of MTV and MTV2 for 24 hours starting at noon on May 18.

A rather amusing press release has it that MTV will give the series --which features actors Paul Scheer, Aziz Ansari and Rob Huebel-- a second season if they get one million hits on their MTV site. A snippet from the release:

Okay, so back on May 9 I found an interview with Human Giant's Paul Scheer (via CC Insider) in which Scheer said that he and his partners in crime, Aziz Ansari and Rob Huebel, would be taking over MTV for a whole 24 hours starting at noon on May 18. I couldn't find anything on MTV's site about it, and then I got distracted by something shiny and wound up forgetting about it.

Well, today The Coming cited an actual e-mail from Scheer himself that makes things a little less vague. It reads:

I think MTV is going after the YouTube generation with its latest programming decisions. Earlier this week, the network announced it had picked up eight episodes of a sketch comedy show called Nick Cannon: Short Circuitz. Now, it has also picked up a sketch/short film comedy series by internet viral video creators, Human Giant. The comedy group produces short films that MTV describes as "recklessly hilarious". Some of the group's most popular clips include Shutterbugs and The Illusionators. The comedy troupe also has a big following in New York where they do live shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre. I checked out the videos and I recognize one of the cast members, Rob Huebel, as the Inconsiderate Cell Phone Guy shown before movies who says, "It's pronounced kah-rah-tay." The first eight episodes are scheduled to air in early 2007.